How many brothers did Jane Austen have?

Jane Austen had six brothers.

She was one of eight children born to George Austen, an Anglican clergyman, and his wife Cassandra Leigh. The family consisted of six boys and two girls: James, George, Edward, Henry Thomas, Francis, Charles, Cassandra, and Jane. Jane was the seventh child, born in 1775, while her sister Cassandra was the only other daughter.

Austen’s brothers followed varied careers and shaped her family’s social world. James and Henry attended Oxford and entered the church; Edward was adopted by wealthy relatives and inherited estates; Henry became a militia officer, banker, clergyman, and an important literary intermediary for Jane; Francis and Charles served in the Royal Navy. Their naval careers helped provide Austen with knowledge of the maritime world reflected in novels such as Mansfield Park and Persuasion.

Readers sometimes count Cassandra as a sibling without distinguishing sisters from brothers, or mistakenly remember seven brothers because the Austen household was unusually large. The precise answer to this question is six brothers and one sister.